A wholesaler of satellite bandwidth can provide bandwidth to various Internet service providers, and can also offer multiple service plans. A service provider can, in turn, sell Internet service to end users, where the end users may be consumer or enterpriser customers. These service plans are often designed to meet the needs of various markets, and can provide, e.g., download speeds in the range of 512 kbps download speeds to 15 Mbps download speeds.
Currently, in the event of outroute congestion (i.e., offered traffic to be delivered to end users exceeds the available outroute capacity of a satellite), traffic can be throttled based on classifications of traffic to ensure that the highest priority traffic is delivered with optimal latency (i.e., the least amount of delay). Lower priority traffic that is throttled may incur higher latency and packet loss. In the event of spoofed Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) traffic, throttling can also result in a reduction of the TCP window advertised to an enterprise host. Classification is typically determined by Internet Protocol (IP) packet classification using IP and Performance-enhancing proxies (PEP) packet selection rules. Within the context of priority, there is currently no distinction in the throttling of traffic as a function of a service plan. That is, all service plans are equally impacted in a manner proportional to the subscribed information rate of a service plan.